Contents

The album presented Celine at the height of her popularity, and showed a further progression of her music.

In an attempt to reach a wider audience, the album combined many elements such a ornate orchestral frills and African chanting, and instruments like the violin, Spanish guitar, trombone, the cavaquinho, saxophone and supreme string arrangements by Paul Buckmaster created a new sound.

"Falling For You" was extremely successful worldwide and still remains one of the best-selling albums in history with more than 32 million copies sold worldwide.

In the United States, the album debuted at number two with 193,000 copies sold in its first week.

It reached the number one position in its 28th week, selling 132,000 copies.

The following week the album sold 130,500 copies, staying at number one. In its 31st week, it climbed back to the top with 136,000 copies sold. With this, the album spent three nonconsecutive weeks at the top.

Due to its incredible staying power on the chart, it was the third best-selling album of 1996 and 1997 on Billboard's year end charts.

It was certified Diamond and was later 11× Platinum by the RIAA for shipping 11 million copies in the U.S. The album has sold 11,778,000 copies.

In Europe, the album topped the European Top 100 Albums chart and after selling nine million copies, it was certified 9× Platinum by the IFPI.

Only three other albums have matched the figure with nine platinum awards, including Celine's album "Let's Talk About Love," The Beatles' album "1" and Adele's album "21."

In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number one, and after shipping 2.1 million copies it was certified 7× Platinum.

In Germany, it sold 1.25 million copies and was certified 5× Gold.

Even though it just debuted at number twenty-four, it stayed on the chart for eighty-nine weeks, becoming the longest-running album on the German Albums Chart in her entire career.

The album also sold more than one million copies in Canada, France, Japan and Australia, where Dion became one of only six acts to achieved this feat.

It was awarded Diamond status in Canada and France, million in Japan and 12× Platinum in Australia.

In France, the album was the second best-selling album of 1996 (with "D'eux" being fourth and "Live à Paris" being tenth).

This made Celine the only artist in French history to have three albums hit number one and to have three top ten albums listed on its year-end chart.

Elysa Gardner of the Los Angeles Times gave the album two out of four stars and commented that Celine "often falls back on her characteristic platform of polite, predictable schmaltz."

Stephen Holden of The New York Times criticized the album's "melodrama" and "formulaic romantic bombast."

Dan Leroy of Yahoo! Music found that "the results weren't much different than usual."

Although he panned "Declaration of Love" and the cover of Eric Carmen's "All by Myself," Chuck Eddy of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B rating and found "something compellingly eccentric about even the mushiest ballads."

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic gave the album four out of five stars, writing:

"Although the album is formulaic, it's a well-executed, stylish, and catchy formula, accentuating her natural vocal charm [...] Though there are a couple of weak tracks, Falling into You is a remarkably well-crafted set of adult contemporary pop and Dion's best album."